Featherweight – first phase

June 22nd, 2011

Good morning, this is Helmers from Opera User experience and Graphics (UxG). Today we are excited to share results of the first phase of project Featherweight. Our goal has been to make Opera as light, bright and user-friendly as possible—without sacrificing power or flexibility. We want the user interface to match the speed of our rendering engine.

Featherweight has been under wraps until now, so that we may present a comprehensive solution, not bits and pieces. Some changes are highly visible, such as those to the address and status bars, but you will find that we have reworked much of the skin throughout—including a brand new icon set. This is the first step in project Featherweight, and a major collaborative effort between the UxG and Desktop teams. Enjoy!

Highlights

Brand new toolbar icon set

Brighter, softer colors for backgrounds and borders

Padding and alignment improvements

Updated status bar design and content

No more button borders in the address bar

The Home and Fast Forward buttons now optional

New “tab fold” attention state – no more blue blob

New window gradient for OS X

Linux/FreeBSD known issue

The text in the status bar may be invisible in dark themes

Remember to keep feedback constructive and to the point—we know many of you are passionate about UI changes!

WARNING: This is a development snapshot: It contains the latest changes, but may also have severe known issues, including crashes, and data loss situations. In fact, it may not work at all.